The Summer We Fell (The Summer, #1)(46)

Seriously, it’s cool. I’ll be fine.”



“No, you won’t,” I reply before I can stop myself. “You’re at a disadvantage in every contest right now.” I’m pushing too hard, but I don’t give a shit; he needs those damn boards.

He glances at me, a look that asks me to let it go, and the other guys stare at us, perhaps surprised to see me lobbying on Luke’s behalf when I mostly act like he doesn’t exist.

I feel like an absolute idiot, but the next morning there’s three grand from an anonymous donor in Luke’s GoFundMe. And I’m pretty sure I’d suffer any amount of feeling like an idiot to see the look of pride on Luke’s face a week later when he pulls the thousand-dollar Ghost he just bought out of the Jeep.

He runs a loving hand over the epoxy surface. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

“So she’s a she, huh?” I tease.

He grins. “The beautiful things always are.”

We all go out to watch him surf on Saturday, and the difference in his performance is shocking.

He’s so much better than he was a year ago, and better still on the new board. He walks out of the water, grinning ear to ear, like a kid on Christmas morning with a toy that’s wound up being even cooler than he ever imagined.

I’m the one he smiles at first as he walks out of the water. “Your turn, ” that smile says. “Send your recordings out.”

Maybe he’s right. Maybe both of us can actually get out of here.

I’M ALONE in the backyard, trying to get a good recording of my new song, when Danny walks outside. He’s had more free time this summer because he’s getting in shape for football in the afternoons rather than surfing. I try not to be annoyed that he seems to think I should free up my time as well.

He takes a seat in the grass, listening, and there’s nothing impatient in his demeanor, but I sense it anyway. Given he’s never encouraged my music, it seems like a fair assumption. He’s never even asked me about the microphone or why I’m recording.

He rises when the song concludes. “Is that new?”

“Yeah.” I wonder if he hears, like I do, the note of challenge in my voice.

“It’s pretty,” he says mildly. “I just don’t know why all your stuff is so depressing. You’ve got a decent life.”

I think of Luke in the diner this morning, tanned and glowing, eyes crinkling at the corners as I approached his table, happy to see me. He said he’d been singing part of my new song in the line-up.

“Everyone heard me singing that line about snow,” he’d said . “They started calling me Father Christmas. I’m never gonna hear the end of it.”

“I didn’t know you could sing.”

“I can’t,” he’d replied . “That’s half what I won’t hear the end of.”

God, my heart felt so fucking full in that moment. So full I didn’t know if it would spill over as laughter or tears.

Danny’s words do the opposite. They make me empty. And that wants to spill over as tears too.

I sit up a little straighter. “Every life contains bad and good. It’s just the kind of music I like.”

He dismisses my explanation with an amiable shrug. Danny doesn’t like to argue, but for the first time, I resent it—the way he’s choosing to let this discussion go as if he’s right and I’m wrong and he’s being big about it. “Well, I’m home early. There are a few shows recorded. We ought to take advantage of it.”

I’d like to refuse, but I can’t, because this is his house, and I’m lucky to be here. It was implied simply in what he said, wasn’t it? If he wants to spend time with me, I should drop anything I’m doing the minute he shows up.

Will there ever come a time when I’m allowed to have my own preferences? When I’m not going to be the lucky one? When I get to pick the show, or get to choose not to pick any show at all?

“Let me just get through one more song,” I tell him. It’s rebellion on the most minor scale, yet I see a flicker of irritation in his eyes before he kisses my head and tells me he’ll be waiting inside.

I swallow hard as the door shuts behind him. I didn’t actually have one more song in mind to play, and now everything I can think of is angry, written by others. I launch into an old, pissed-off Smashing Pumpkins song, and when it’s done, I’m near tears. What the fuck am I doing? How can I possibly be mad at Danny when he’s given me everything I have?

I set the guitar on the grass and bury my head in my hands, but it jerks up again at the sound of feet approaching. Luke steps into the light, freshly showered, glowing from a day spent outside.

“What’s wrong?” he demands. His tone leaves no room for the vague denial I’d probably have offered.

“Danny told me my songs are depressing and that he doesn’t get it because I’ve got a really good life.”

It was more than that, but I can’t put the rest into words. Or maybe I could but it would be too disloyal to the Allens to do so. To say, “I’m tired of feeling like I’m in debt. I’m tired of feeling like I don’t get a say.”

Luke steps closer. “He doesn’t understand you. It’s nothing against Danny. But his mind doesn’t work the way yours does.”